Paul, What I was differing with on the "high grade vs low grade' aspect was the saturated vs unsaturated aspect that Ken mentioned, with the heavier saturated fats that tend to settle towards the bottom being of "lower" grade.
Both saturated and unsaturated make good biodiesel. Just that saturated has a higher cloud point and will exhibit winter associated problems more quickly. I certainly would give a "low grade" connotation to the oil mixed amongst the solid fraction that settles out. That's the part that is problematic in that cumulatively it is one boatload of fuel. We've got a downdraft wood gasifier on the shopping list so that the fuel content of the solds can be recovered. That and so the process becomes more biofuel oriented. But the majority of the oil still needs to be extracted. Even then we won't use all 250,000 btus of output in the biodiesel process, so the excess will have to be utilized in other manners. Plans to use the waste heat and exhaust are already in the mix for a greenhouse - the CO2 rich exhaust will suit such purposes enormously well. We'll just have to "vent before human entry," even though gasifier exhaust contains far less CO than "conventional" exhaust. Todd Swearingen ----- Original Message ----- From: "paul van den bergen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <biofuel@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2003 12:01 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Master Puzzler for Biofuelers... > On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 03:30 pm, Appal Energy wrote: > > And to think...all I wanted to do was squeeze the guts out of a few hundred > > pounds of oil soaked burger chips.... > > > > I wouldn't consider the saturated fats necessarily a "low grade" feedstock, > > nor the biodiesel from same to necessarily be inferior. It would just have > > a higher cloud point is all. Still a perfectly good fuel under most > > conditions. > > > > Todd Swearingen > > Just to clarify what I mean by high grade versus low grade. > It may be a high grade fuel once you seperate it from all the rest of the > junk, thus the desire to press it. But (IMHO) it is low grade, atleast wrt > WVO as you do need to do an additional step to extract the value. > > high grade (or high value if you prefer) implies to my mind little or no > processing or inexpensive/low tech/simple/cheap equipment to process it. > especially where the energy input is low or free. > > low grade implies to me that the opposite is true. The fuel source contains > lots of contamination or materials that are hard to remove or requires > expensive equipment, difficult processing, or energy intensive processing, > especially wrt other equivelent sources. > > if you don't want to compost it, pyrolise it. Or straight out burn it to make > steam - water gas, electricity, as energy source for distilling, etc. etc. > > My point really is that teh optimal use for a given matter stream will depend > on a number of factors and (self imposed - e.g. not wanting to use dinofuels) > limitations. If cost effectiveness is your aim, (and your definition of cost > may vary :-) ) then the choice of what you use a given feed strock for will > (er... should?) be based on the best return for your effort. > > Given two feedstocks, WVO and dumster trash with WVO all though it, I would > make the WVO into diesel and use the trash either as compost, methane > digestion, fermentation, or low grade fuel to make steam etc. to refine the > diesel/ distil (m)ethanol. > > > > -- > Dr Paul van den Bergen > Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures > caia.swin.edu.au > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > IM:bulwynkl2002 > It's a book. Non-volatile storage media. Everyone should have one. > > > > Biofuel at Journey to Forever: > http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html > > Biofuels list archives: > http://archive.nnytech.net/ > > Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. > To unsubscribe, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Your own Online Store Selling our Overstock. http://us.click.yahoo.com/rZll0B/4ftFAA/46VHAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
